Shadow Form meets the end

Look, basically, ANet made some stupid decisions by putting way overpowered skills and consumables in EoTN. SF was not overpowered when it could only be maintained by A/Me and the player was forced to rely on dagger skill damage and some degen.

Until EotN, you could farm a limited amount of areas, several bosses, or tank in some areas for your allies. ToPK could be soloed with a huge investment of time and very careful playing (you had to use A/E with limited time on SF and shadow of haste to make it work, though)

EotN introduced not only terribly overpowered skills but GoS which opened up the whole elementalist line of damage, including intensity, to SF.

The intention seemed to be to introduce a huge high end area to keep people occupied until GW2. But it was done without proper consideration to what the results would be. Suddenly, high end overpowered skills were available to all areas of the game, steamrolling over what had been moderately balanced before.

Not only that, expensive and rare items like the elemental sword and serpent axe became so common they were merchant fodder - further reducing rewards for playing the three basic campaigns and removing the thrill of playing them. There is no fun in playing through the general campaigns because hardly anything drops there anymore that is worth anything. They have become mostly farming spots to get materials for playing the few high end areas where unique rewards do still exist. (the need for zaishen quests just to get anyone to play those areas is a good indication that something is very wrong)

Basically, the game is screwed and SF is just the tip of the iceberg. Even if every overpowerd skill is nuked, we still would have the problem that the whole reward system for most of the game is out of whack. Nuking OPed skills would keep the average player from playing the high end areas. But there is no incentive to play any of the other areas either.

This whole debate then, is really just evidence that after nightfall, ANet stopped caring about GW. They did not put in the time or thought needed to keep it a truly enjoyable game. And I don't see anyway to go back at this point.

Nuking SF is just pointless now. It will do nothing. It will help nothing. It will just further reveal the incredible flaws in the game to the average player and create boredom and frustration - and who wants to play that kind of game?....

..........unless ANet does more than rip off the bandaid and comes up with some creative way to repair the flaws introduced into the basic game with EotN. And, I have little confidence in that happening.

It's a sad day when "fun" in a video game is defined by how much ingame money can be made.

If you seriously have a problem with "farming" you need to find a new genre of game to play. Farming has been a staple of MMOs since before they were called MMOs when they all used text/ansi graphics, worked on 300bps dialup lines, and were called "MUDs".

It's a way to keep people in persistent worlds after all the "content" has been cleared. Getting rid of it entirely would be a phenomenally stupid thing to do (although Anet has shown a sad track record of stupidity wrt to it ranging all the way back to the AFC) especially since we know they're unwilling to provide more content to play.

They did, its called Guild Wars 2

I don't understand the hate on SF?

For those who play assassins (my main is a Sin, which I've had since Factions was released and did not rely on SF), can anyone say that they got into Urgoz/Deep/DoA/UW/FoW/Etc. etc. in a balanced group without being perma-SF tanks?

I will just go ahead and assume that in most situations the answer is a resounding no. This is not the players' fault, or the game's fault, it is ANet's failure to properly balance the game and classes.

Take perma-SF out, and one of the most enjoyable classes for myself and many others will once again be resigned to H/H the entire game, since no PUG or even some guilds will take Sins into high end areas without some form of tanking ability.

The nerfing of SF is silly! I mean who's really against it, Wammos and other tanks? Solo-farming raptors and certain bosses isn't really affecting the economy, and before those new skellies in UW, several classes could solo farm UW for ectos, even W/Rts, and usually with better survivability and redundancy.

If ANet earnestly wants to balance out (nerf) SF, then they're going to have to rebalance other skills. First though, is the intent. Its silly to nerf a useful skill because a few crybaby players who's warrior tanks got replaced by SF Sins whined too much. And since ANet is not publicly against farming, then what is the point? SF is not godmode as so many erroneously claim, there are many areas with signets, non-targeted enchant stripping and such that make SF builds useless.

I personally am sick of the holy trinity of Wammo, Monk and Ele. Why even introduce new classes in expansions if no one will seriously consider them in group play? Personally, I feel the problem with GW is that each class is not really differentiated well. There's no stealth system, so assassins make little sense in the first place. Every class is either direct damage, support or healing, and while the assassin does a lot of damage, its survivability is low because its poorly designed.

Shadow Form is the Sins only way to simulate "striking from the shadows." Personally, I play a variety of classes, Derv, Ele, Mes, Rit, etc. and I always come back to the Sin not because of SF farming but because its the most fun for me. But to get into a human group for an elite area I pretty much HAVE to use SF, just as other classes have meta builds that work in certain high end areas. If you take away SF, ANet has to give the sin another option, such as making Critical Defenses a unremovable skill or even a stance. Its not fair or just to take away a Sin's ONLY skill that allows it to play with others in high end areas unless you balance another skill or set of skills to allow the same thing.

No, "big black demon does huge damage when he hits you in the face" is roleplaying. KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE CAN SAVE YOUR IRLIFE.

But as long as I am under PS and SoA he can hit me ALL he wants!
And that's the gimmick.

We go from a situation where we have nearly one hit kills to a situation where the guy is just a tame pussy. The difficulty relies on a simple gimmick, which is one hit kills. And once you figure out the gimmick, the difficulty is gone.

Yup, as to be expected with a 4,5 years old game, that hasn't been updated in those core area's by much.

Anet makes a puzzle for us to crack (UW), people bash their head against a wall (Aatxe), one smart individual solves the problem (Prot Spirit) and posts it on PvX.... puzzle solved by everyone. Stale gameplay from there-on.

That's why I like skill balancing. Lots of opportunities and new puzzles to solve.

What kind of proper general PvE warrior uses those skills? Perhaps a tank, but that is a completely different role than the assassin.

And also, to my knowledge, Obsidian flesh will not stack with Dolyak. And if you use endure pain, and to a lesser extent, signet of stamina, you will be useless to the team.
If you use Signet of Stamina, you can't fight. Making your warrior role useless, unable to spam SY. Meanwhile, Endure Pain is a literal suicide skill.

And obviously the Aatxes would hit the squishies that come into range over the warrior. The warrior has too much hp and armor, making the AI target others. And once the Aatxe moves, you're pinned down from your own skill bar.


I'm sorry, no thanks. I'd much rather take an assassin any day if warriors are going to do that.
I would much rather take the assassin with his insta-SY to the team with all his 1/2 attack skills rather than the latter. They don't even need moebius strike!
Personally, I take flashing blades for extra defense and damage, but auspicious parry looks great for the SY spam too.

The difference between Guild Wars and all those other games is that all the areas in GW are designed to be played with a full party. Going against that undermines the game's mechanics.

Next will definitely be SoS seeing how strong it is. Maybe a return to old school tanks and RoJ/Cry will come back into the meta. Maybe 100b if they don't touch it. I'm sure Manlyway will be fine as long as 100b isn't changed again, they will just find a new bar to tank.

Bingo . The "challenge" gets out of the picture with some broken combos. It is a cancer , now its so grown that the only solution is killing/entire reworking that combo .... lets see what happens.

SoS can't be a meta as only one can be used per' team. And if it were to be used for a speed clear, it would be very, very hard.

And what about the people who find it "challenging" to design builds that are able to make things solo able? The whole premise behind GW was an open ended game where the player was in charge of everything about their character. Contrary to all the purists beliefs about principle, there are those players who do in fact like power gaming by making broken builds that defy the conventional. These players can only use the skills presented to them by ANET. And no one seems to mind that ANET broke their principles by introducing grind into the game. It was the only way to sustain this game, but a broken principle none the less.

Once again, while there may be implied principles and beliefs about what's "supposed to be" in GW. Being an open ended game pretty much leaves it up to the player on what they feel their GW experience should be like. If it wasn't, then GW should have just been a 2d side scroller like Super Mario Bros.

When the nerf comes. I just hope ANET has the decency to at least revert UW back to its original state among other areas that necessitated the need for perma sins. I wish I had made my Sin sooner and cashed in like everyone has. Too bad.

I'm sorry, I really REALLY hate this argument. For one, have you played GW2? How would you know what they're doing with it? What we know is that the people who made GW1/semi maintain GW1 are making GW2. SF has been godmode for WAY too long, and you think that this proves that GW2 will rectify a mistake such as this? Of course, I'd love to be proved wrong by something under the GW2 fact going "there will be no godmode build/farm for this game."

Secondly, kind of goes to my first point, we are currently playing GW1, not 2. Frankly, until I get to play and see the game I dont give a rat's ass what is in it. Point is, they need to fix THIS game first.

Finally, to the main point of this topic: I'll believe it when I see it. They've been discussing nerfing SF for over a year when people were able to farm mindblades for ridiculous amounts of ecto, and have had "serious" talks since earlier this year. Yet instead of fixing a single Godmode skill, MANY months later they decide to make UW harder for ALL groups, not just farmers, but SF remains UNCHANGED.

Farming is not the problem, godmode button is. Usually nerfing a single skill is pointless, but when its godmode...it needs to be done. The fact that its the single most prevalent farming style and even used in group farms proves its over efficiency.

Didn't Anet compare GW to a trading card game like Magic The Gathering during development? Drawing a comparison between the 8 skill limit and building a deck out of the vast number of cards available?

With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that using the right build is just as important (and possibly more important, in some cases) as knowing how to use that build. No matter how good you are at MTG, failing at deck building will almost always mean the match has been lost before you even started. Inversely a particularly well built deck can make up for some amount of a player's lack in skill, especially if you happen to know what type of deck the other person will be using ahead of time.

If someone's deck is clearly superior to yours then you don't go "you only won because your deck is better than mine!" because deck building is part of the game, and if you don't like it or aren't good at it then it's probably best to find a game that closer matches what you're looking for than complain that you don't like "gimmicky" deck building and try to get the entire game changed to fit your wants.

The same applies to GW. Some cards/skill can be over/underpowered and require and adjustment, but once you start complaining that, for example, using PS to counter high damage is "gimmicky" and not "challenging," then it starts to become clear that you're looking for a challenge or gameplay the game isn't meant to provide (at least not in PvE, anyway).

What some call "gimmicks" are really part of the basis of the game's design philosophy. You use the tools/cards best suited for the job you want your build/deck to fulfill, or to best counter your opponent's deck/build if you know it beforehand. Removing the "gimmicks" would require a reworking of the entire game, which begs the question: why change the entire game to fit the wants of some when they could find another game that already has what they want?

And apparently Anet realizes that there are enough people looking for "something else" which is why they seem to have developed less of a "deck building" and more of a "quality over quantity" approach to skills in GW2. That doesn't mean one is inherently better than the other, though. It just means it's different, which gives people choices, which allows people to pick the one they prefer instead of there just being a single option that's in constant flux because the developers haven't realized you can't cater to everyone at once. Which means everyone should be just a little bit happier in the end.

If one skill bar is able to take on six other skill bars, something is really, really wrong.

GW isn't open-ended, it's just poorly designed to allow such openness.

And I'll give you that to an extent. Taking Blobbob MTG example. The DCI, which is MTG's sanctioning body, has to enforce the banning of certain cards that are considered too powerful for game play. Which is how it should be when your playing against another player in a tournament type setting. Especially if it's a tournament where money can be won. Which is why I was happy when ANET decided to differentiate between PvP and PvE skills. But were not talking about nerfing permas for the sake of PvP. We're talking about nerfing a build rooted in PvE that helps makes it easier for players to get those high end items. So is it sour grapes for those that followed "the rules of play" for their high end items not being so special anymore? That's what me thinks ultimately more than any "principle" someone else throws at me.

I'd much rather see systems set in place to allow less-experienced players easier routes in experiencing the more difficult areas. This is where the Normal and Hard mode settings can accomplish. A tone down of elite areas in Normal mode would go a huge way in allowing newcomers in playing through the content, while the players looking to go through the challenging portions can do so in Hard mode.

In regards to letting less experienced players a chance to get the high-end drops, why? The only things those items have going for them is the rarity. The only things you truly "need" are obtained at the first area where you can get max gear.

And if ANet does want to make rare drops easier to get I'd much rather see an increase in droprate - or hell, I'd rather ANet just simply give everyone the items. Making the items easier to get through dumbing down the gameplay is not the proper route.

sf is not godmode

^^ I believe that's answer to your "question", couldn't have said it any better. bear in mind GW2 will have less skills because ArenaNet sees too many skills as a problem. I especially like the bold part.